


either way, the outcome is the same.

by firewlkr



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, Blood and Injury, Canonical Character Death, Cutting, Death, Depression, Doki Doki Literature Club! Spoilers, Emotional Manipulation, Existential Crisis, F/F, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Going to Hell, Implied Sexual Content, Masochism, Mindfuck, Sad Ending, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, doki doki is not okie dokie, kill your dokis, knaifu waifu, that's it i'm kinkshaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 22:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17191637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewlkr/pseuds/firewlkr
Summary: 'she can feel a poem burning in her chest. she thinks of her hair winding in the bath and the green waters tainted by her own blood and that horrible resignation of failure once more. she thinks of him and how she wants him to see her, but she also thinks of Natsuki and all her cruel, condescending beauty. she fetches a clean sheet of paper and puts her favorite pen to paper.' [Yuri's side of DDLC. Yuri/Protag, Yuri/Natsuki, implied Yuri/Monika. Spoilers for DDLC ending. Please heed warnings.]





	either way, the outcome is the same.

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Explicit references to self-harm/self-injury, anxiety, depression, blood, and suicide.
> 
> Serious spoilers for DDLC.

_"It's true, we're all a little insane_  
_But it's so clear now that I'm unchained."_

_Sweet Sacrifice - Evanescence_

**Act 1, Day 1**

 

Once Yuri quietly shuts the door separating herself from the rest of the world, she drops her tense shoulders and exhales a sigh of relief, hissing past parted lips. She drops her keys in a dish beside the door, gently places her schoolbag on the same table, slips off her spotless black loafers and deposits them in their place on the shoe rack. On white socked feet, Yuri gently moves upstairs to her room to change into her lounge clothes. She deposits her school uniform into the waiting hamper and pulls on a worn pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie emblazoned with a band she was obsessed with in middle school and rushes downstairs to prepare dinner. Yuri ties her long, thick hair into a messy bun atop her head and uses a Bluetooth speaker that plays her favorite true crime podcast as she prepares her dinner. 

She creates a simple meal of vegetables and rice. She scoops perfectly measured amounts of water and rice into the ricemaker and with the practiced ease one might find in a sushi shop, chops vegetables into perfect portions, her hands moving with practiced deftness and obvious familiarity with the chef’s knife, honed to a glimmering edge. Aromas of spice and wholesome food fill the kitchen as she works. While her vegetables cook in the massive steel wok, she checks her cellphone a couple of times. With the new club member, the group chat she shares with Natsuki, Sayori, and Monika was lighting up her phone, more than any time she could remember before. Once her meal is finished she scoops herself a serving and places the rest into a glass container to cool on the counter - she’d eat the rest for lunch tomorrow, and probably share some with the ever ravenous Natsuki. For someone so slender, that girl eats huge quantities of food! 

Yuri takes a seat on her comfortable loveseat and turns on her TV and, as has been tradition for as long as she can remember, watches her favorite television show of all time, _The X-Files_. It’s a perfect blend of horror and science fiction and she was positively in love with the two main characters, the idealistic Fox Mulder and the ever-cool Dana Scully. She had been gifted with a full box-set of DVDs for her birthday and was working through the series, episode by episode. She’s enraptured as she places each bite of rice and vegetable into her mouth and by the episode’s end, she’s finished her meal. 

There’s a gentle _mrowww_ from beneath a coffee table and her cat, Stormy, stretches out from the darkness, her black coat glistening. She hops up onto the couch and rubs her face onto Yuri’s. Yuri laughs and rubs her friend’s fuzzy head.

“You’ve obviously been busy,” Yuri jokes. Stormy _merps_ in reply and begins batting at an errant strand of hair in Yuri’s bun. Yuri lets her until her claw snags on it, then she gently disengages Stormy’s paw and places her on the end of the couch. Yuri had found the elderly cat during a bad bout of rain a year ago, and at Natsuki’s insistence, kept her. She had all of Natsuki’s traits - prideful, playful, and a voracious appetite. She was Yuri’s first and only pet and she loved her whole-heartedly. She implicitly reminded her of her and Yuri has wanted to bond with Natsuki over their shared love of cats but had yet to find the courage. She knew that _he_ would probablynot find her obsession with felines as interesting, possibly yet another tell-tale sign of her social anxiety… 

Yuri holds her small, pale hands in each other and meticulously works beneath each manicured nail, ensuring each is clean and spotless. She had only known him for a few hours, but the moment he had stepped into the clubroom, eyes meeting hers, she felt inexplicably drawn to him. The entire club meeting she had followed his movements, drawing over each line of his body, trying to memorize it within herself just in case she never saw him again. She was flattered and felt her body turn to a warm mush as he smiled and listened to her ceaseless rambling, a rapid-fire vomit she couldn’t seem to stop. Her heart felt as if it would beat out of her chest; but that was nearly every day, due to her social anxieties.

She splays her hands in distress and then collects her dishes, cleans them quickly, dries them, and places them back in the cupboard. She draws a glass of water and, fetching her bookbag, sweeps upstairs to begin on homework. 

Yuri has struggled with social anxiety for a while and has based certain things around her life explicitly around relaxation. While she can’t stop herself from struggling with anxiety attacks during the school day, she can also ensure that her time in her personal sanctuary is as calming as possible. Her bed, covered in thick, faux-fur blankets, is delicately draped with chiffon and fairy lights. The walls have been painted a dark, warm color and a fluffy rug warms up the cool wooden floors. Adjacent to her bed is a broad white desk, the only light-colored object in the room. There’s a lamp that offers plenty of light, her laptop, and an oil diffuser which she promptly fills with calming lavender to set the mood to complete her homework for the day. 

Spinning a mechanical pencil in her agile fingers, she struggles to concentrate on the task at hand. As her hand moves across the pages in her notebook to complete her calculus homework, she finds her mind dwelling not on the proofs at hand but instead on him - and she isn’t the only one, she sardonically notes as her phone buzzes for the numberless time with a notification from one of the girls. Frustrated, she scoops up her cellphone to check what the club has to say. A quick scan shows that Monika and Sayori are debating whether or not to add the new member to the group chat, with Natsuki in furious rebuttal. This had devolved into a character assessment of the new member. 

 

xparfaitprincessx: I just dont feel like it was necessary to add any1 else

xparfaitprincessx: hes just going to be a perv thats the only reason he joined

sayonara: that’s not true!!! He’s always been super good to me!!! 

lilmonix3: I seriously doubt he’s that two-dimensional.

themarkoviancondition: I’m sure if we were to suspect foul play one of us would have noticed it already. He appears to be gentlemanly. 

xparfaitprincessx: yuri wtf do u always text like that 

xparfaitprincessx: it’s a text not a book

sayonara: LOL 

themarkoviancondition: I suppose you would rather I type “lyke this omg!!!!”? 

lilmonix3: You forgot the emojis, haha

xparfaitprincessx: OMFG I’m ignoring your bullshit rn 

xparfaitprincessx: at least I text faster 

themarkoviancondition: Anyway… has anyone started on their poem yet?

sayonara: I just woke up omg 

lilmonix3: How many naps do you take a day?? 

sayonara: ummmm don’t worry about that lol 

sayonara: do you think he would help me write my poem??? I totally wanna askkk

xparfaitprincessx: WTF way to cheat sayori!!!!! 

lilmonix3: I’m sure you wouldn’t mind giving me his number, then? 

sayonara: why did I say anythinggg

themarkoviancondition: In order to find his literary voice, we should avoid from affecting his work with ours. It would be disingenuous of us. 

lilmonix3: yuri I’m sure if you lived by him you’d be the first to knock on his door

xparfaitprincessx: I swear ur boobs grew 2 sizes when he came in lmao 

sayonara: stop looking at yuri’s boobs!! I mean I do too I can’t help it 

themarkoviancondition: …

lilmonix3: LOL 

 

Face reddening, Yuri locks her phone screen and places her hands on her burning cheeks in an attempt to cool them. No luck. She’d worn a more… interesting bra yesterday and she supposed the effect must have been noticeable to her club members. It was a black lace push-up bra that made buttoning the top button on her uniform more difficult than necessary. Although if Natsuki had noticed…

Why was Natsuki staring at her chest, anyway? Weren’t all the girls straight? Or was it that terribly confusing playful bi-curiosity all high school girls idly toyed with? Or perhaps her chest was so monstrously huge it was impossible for one _not_ to notice any subtle change. She waited for disgust to claw it’s way up her throat at the idea of Natsuki staring at her chest, but instead, she only felt a warm flattery from the knowledge, which troubled her more. Why did she care if Natsuki stared at her? Did she like them? Yuri had known about her… curiosity regarding Natsuki for a long time but she had assumed it’d been a strictly one-sided affair; Natsuki held barely feigned disdain for Yuri, which ground her heart to bits each day. _I wonder if_ he _noticed… if he likes them… if he’s an ass man or a boob man…_

There was the revulsion, washing hot across her body. What a gross thought! She’d only just met him today… but she wanted to know if she liked how she looked, the small things about her that she liked about herself, her long soft hair and the curve of her breasts that dwarfed the rest of the girls. Yuri rapped her long nails across her desk. She had an issue with intrusive thoughts and this one was snarling in the cogs of her mind. She begins playing some louder rock music on her Bluetooth speaker while she meticulously works through the rest of her homework. The sky was past twilight once she was able to look up again. This was her cue for another crucial part of her relaxation routine, and she moves into her attached bathroom to draw a warm bath. 

She stands naked in the bathroom, steam pillowing out from the bath, as she carefully selects a bath bomb. She settles on a curious green one which carried an air of patchouli and gently drops it into the waiting steaming waters. The bicarbonate foams and fills the tub with emerald shimmering waters which she delicately steps into, sitting down to watch her hair swarm around her in complex tendrils. There were a scattering of tealights around the bathtub to add to the ambience, her most worn copy of _The Portrait of Markov,_ and one last item concealed beneath a towel. Drying her hands on a handtowel, she sets the spine of the book on the edge of the tub and begins where she’d left off yesterday. She makes her best effort to focus on only her book and the beautiful words…

It was beginning. It began with Natsuki, staring at her chest, and the only reason Natsuki would stare at her chest was if it was disgusting, and surely if Natsuki and Sayori had noticed then _he_ must have surely noticed, and what had he felt? Revulsion at this pointlessly overweight girl and the ceaseless braindead rambling that flowed from her mouth. He was going to leave the club because of her, wasn’t he? She and the twin disgusting stretch-marked blimps attached to her chest were going to chase him out forever and the girls would realize _Why are we even in this stupid club with_ her? And would make their own, separate club and she would be left all alone like she _always_ was and like she _deserved_ … the inevitable thought spiral had conquered her.

Before Yuri could begin any breathing exercise to calm the rising tide her soap-slicked hands are flying for the knife and it’s against her wrist and _ahhhhh…_

Her mind stills and there is only the knife, the blood, and the pulsing fresh wound. She watches, transfixed, as the blood streams down her pale wrist and into the waiting waters, staining the serene emerald waters with her scarlet regret. She can feel hot tears down her cheeks. With numb, shaking fingers, she dips the knife in the water and dries it off with the hand towel. She dips her wrist in the water and hisses as the salted water stings at the wound. Her heart is hammering staccato in her heaving breast. She feels as if she ran a marathon and her mind feels rattled to the core.

 Ashamed at her failure, Yuri finishes her bath. The anxiety has fled and she’s left only with apathy. The slash against her wrist isn’t particularly deep, but it won’t stop bleeding until she’s able to dry it off with a special black towel. She smears antibacterial ointment on it, presses a surgical pad to it, and carefully winds tape around her arm. She has done this nearly every day since she began high school. The cut will have scabbed over sufficiently by morning and she will be able to take it off and go to school and let the healing process begin. Just as she is practiced in her knifework, she is as practiced in treating her self-inflicted wounds.

She dons a pair of old gym shorts and an oversized t-shirt to sleep in and, wet hair wound over her shoulder, takes a seat at her desk and can feel a poem burning in her chest. She thinks of her hair winding in the bath and the green waters tainted by her own blood and that horrible resignation of failure once more. She thinks of him and how she wants him to see her, but she also thinks of Natsuki and all her cruel, condescending beauty. She fetches a clean sheet of paper and puts her favorite pen to paper.

 

_The tendrils of my hair illuminate …_

 

— 

 

**Act 2, Day 2**

 

xparfaitprincessx: y is there another person in the group chat???

xparfaitprincessx: yuri did u put the new guy in here???

xparfaitprincessx: helloooo???

lilmonix3 has banned ——— from “The Literature Club!” 

lilmonix3: That’s weird

lilmonix3: Yuri, what did you do???

themarkoviancondition: How like you, Natsuki, to put this on me and how typical of you, Monika, to join in on her. 

themarkoviancondition: I had no idea there was ever a fourth person in this group chat. I did not invite them here, and I do not even have the new club member’s information. 

xparfaitprincessx: lmao calm down omg way to overreact yuri

xparfaitprincessx: u can never take a joke

themarkoviancondition: Well excuse me for not finding your “joke” very funny.

lilmonix3: Omfg why are you guys always like this!

xparfaitprincessx: fine have fun stuffing ur tits 4 tmrw yuri

 

Typically, when she does this, she can feel the swirling storm within her in time to call out to a watchtower and at least make an attempt to stop it. She cannot recall a moment ever having gone from completely relaxed to entirely furious and ready for blood, until now. With frantic claws she throws open her desk drawer and wrenches the first thing that comes to mind. This time it’s a boxcutter she had previously used for a crafts project. Heedless of potential infection she presses the blade to her wrist and lets the instantaneous relief and _pleasure_ wash over her.

When she comes to her senses she realizes that she had carved four strikes into her wrist, each deeper than the last. Scarlet blood was staining the crevices of her hand, dyeing her cuticles crimson and dripping onto the white desk. She drops the gory boxcutter onto the desk as she gropes blindly in her drawer for a roll of paper towels. It’s not enough blood to kill her, but she feels light-headed, possibly from the rush of adrenaline. She wads paper towels over her arm and struggles to calm her breathing. It’s so _loud_ in her ears, ragged and hitching. She doesn’t dare stand up until she can breathe properly, and it takes a very long time. Once she finally can trust herself, she stumbles on watery legs to the bathroom and plunges her arm under the ice cold faucet. 

She looks up in the mirror and hates what she sees. The girl reflected is sniveling, eyes and cheeks swollen, sputtering spittle out of chapped lips. There are bags under her eyes that echo the bruised purple of her irises. Some girls have the ability to cry charmingly; Yuri’s tears have always been wrenched from her and render her a sputtering, disgusting mess. 

She gives up on trying to salvage herself like this and, arm held out from her body, strips off her clothes and throws herself bodily into a freezing shower. The freezing water aids somewhat at cooling her overheated body down. She stays in there longer than she would a normal shower, shivering in the cold, terrified to leave, afraid of facing herself, afraid of facing her phone again…

After toweling off and shrugging back into clean clothes, Yuri carefully wraps her cuts and, thusly armed with disinfectant spray and rags, cleans the weapon and desk from her blood and sets everything in order. Once she’s finished she cleans her hands thoroughly. She _should_ feel calm, but maybe it was the fighting with Natsuki or that weird person in the group chat or the fact she’d cut more and deeper than ever, but it’s impossible for her to settle her nerves.

She checks her phone. Monika has messaged her privately.

 

lilmonix3: what does cutting yourself feel like?

 

Yuri nearly throws her phone through the window, so repulsed at what’s she read. But it stays in place in her shaking fingers and she writes a reply.

 

themarkoviancondition: … why are you asking me? 

lilmonix3: I think everyone knows about your little “addiction”. 

lilmonix3: So why do you do it?

 

For once, Yuri doesn’t hesitate. Angered by Monika’s brashness, she disregards feigning ignorance and instead tells Monika exactly what she wants to hear - why she cuts. 

 

themarkoviancondition: It’s the only time I feel alive and the only time my mind isn’t constantly trying to light itself on fire with it’s thought spirals. I have anxiety that can sometimes seriously mess with my thinking. It can be difficult for me to focus again once I get on that track. Cutting is a certain way to bring myself back down to reality. I am a little addicted to the adrenaline rush. I have also gotten into knife collecting and one of my ways of testing the sharpness of my knives is by cutting. I am beginning to think I am also a bit of a masochist. Does that answer your question, President? 

 

Yuri is filled with regret after she sends the missive, but it’s quickly dispelled with curiosity with Monika finally replies. 

 

lilmonix3: I think I want to try it. I can’t go into specifics but I’m in a similar position as you right now. Idk. Maybe I’m just bored and stupid. Brb

 

Yuri doesn’t respond. Is Monika actually going to…? 

Her heart pounds in her chest. Filled with terror, Yuri sketches the bones of a poem on a scrap of paper while she waits for the inevitable response.

The next thing Monika sends her makes Yuri cry aloud. It’s a photo of Monika’s bone-white arm with a surprisingly deep cut. 

 

lilmonix3: I think I get it now. I don’t think I’ll be doing this again, unless I want to kill myself. Thank you, Yuri. I think we understand each other a little better now, Vice President.

 

Yuri can’t scramble to the bathroom to vomit fast enough. 

 

_Breathing time breathing prayer breathing sky breathing wheel_

 

— 

 

**Act 2, Day 3**

 

She doesn’t remember how she got home and neither does she care. She’s cry-laughing, her chest a heaving mess of dry-heaves and hitching clutches of laughter. She’s collapsed on the floor of her bathroom, a variety of knives splayed around her, each bloodied individually, and the rows of slashes are stacked from the very end of her wrist to the beginning of her elbow, and again up the tender flesh of her biceps. Her arms are on _fire_ and she _never_ wants it to _stop_.He’s going to love her, him and only her, Monika promised her. He wants her, he wants her hair, he thinks she writes like Stephen fucking King, he wants to fuck her, he wants to make her hurt… he doesn’t even have to touch her, it’d wreck her anyway, just _looking_ at him is enough to make her c… 

There’s a prize clutched in her fist and brings it to her mouth and sucks on it. It’s a pen. It’s _his_ pen, the only one she’s ever seen him use. He’s touched this, so many times… and now I’m…! She winds her tongue around it, pulling it deeper into her hot mouth. She pulls it out and watches the spittle drift from her lips to the end of the pen. It’s not enough, not close enough. She’s going to _die_ if she can’t be right next to him, if she can’t open up his skin and crawl inside him… 

… she slides the pen down past the waistband of her panties… 

It’s not enough. When’s she’s done she’s still a hyperactive wreck. She doesn’t bother even binding her cuts properly; she likes the light-headed dizzy-funny feeling the pain and blood loss give her. She grabs a crumpled piece of notebook paper and begins writing, she doesn’t even have to look at the page to know that’s whatever’s she’s writing is going to work. It’s going to be what sways him to her favor, he won’t be able to look at anyone but her anymore and he’s going to know exactly what she wants… 

When she wrote _Wheel_ last night it was a little like this, this strange, high as fuck feeling and just wanting to fuck and write and cut… but when she finished Wheel she was disgusted with herself. But when she finishes… _this_ … she’s never been more proud… it’s her magnum opus and it’s all for him… he’s going to finally understand, and Natsuki and fucking Monika are going to get the idea and leave them alone. She’s never been so happy in all her pathetic life and it’s all because of how wonderful _he_ is… 

She’s cried herself to sleep more times than she can count but she’s laughing till the very end, succumbing to sleep with a smile on her lips…

 

_Fresh blood seeps through the line parting her skin and slowly colors her breast red… her Third Eye is drawing me closer…_

 

—

 

She asks him if he wants to be her lover. And she knows that it doesn’t matter what he says, there is only one way this will end. She sees his eyes waver. There’s no smile on his lips, no waiting arms, just a blank expression of resignation. It’s the most beautiful fucking thing she has ever seen. 

She can’t hear what she said, she only knows what she wants. She _needs_ him to say yes so she does. The joy in her is enough to rip open her heart. The laughter explodes out of her, a chaotic cacophony she can’t seem to stop. It’s delicious and beautiful and wonderful. This is it, the happiest she’ll ever be. There’s one way to push it over the edge, one way to give herself complete and utter ecstasy…

She brandishes the knife and drives it into her chest. _GOD, IT’S SO FUCKING GOOD!_ She screams, and does it again, and again, and again…

 

—

 

… she’s lying cold on the floor. She’s aware of the blossoming you’ve-fucked-up-beyond-repair pain in her chest and stomach, she can taste the blood in her mouth and throat. She has never been so tired. There is no pleasure she derives in this pain, only the endless quest for oblivion as she lies there, still and growing achingly colder each passing second. Time has lost all meaning to her and she can’t a hear a single breath in her chest, for the first time since this all began. 

She’s vaguely aware of him staring at her with complete attention but, for the first time, it does not wrack her body with ceaseless ecstasy, it’s… disappointing. This life she has led has been so disappointing… a constant cycle of antidepressants and anxiety spirals and chasing highs by cutting… what was the point? The point of reading all those books and writing all those poems if she’d never escape this pointless world? The happiest she had ever felt was all for a boy who couldn’t even save her from death. What had been the point? Was this all this was to her life? 

She’ll never see Stormy again. She’ll never see Natsuki again. She is beyond saving, death is upon her and she’s fucked it all so badly that she’ll never be teased by Natsuki again, never eat her cupcakes, never spy on her from afar, never get to smell the sweet scent of her hair again… she’s fading fast, the ice upon her. Every breath feels stretched ceaselessly into infinity…

 

_Either way, the outcome is the same._

_Yet we still build sand castles._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> If it wasn't explicit, the "---" deleted by Monika was Sayori's account. 
> 
> By writing this I wanted to explore Yuri's own personality and personal issues as opposed to the game/Monika's interference. By no means do I intend to glorify self-harm or make generalizations regarding the issue. It is a symptom of mental illness that must be treated individually. I also do not intend to glorify/make generalizations regarding social anxiety, especially as someone who suffers from an anxiety disorder. Yuri always seemed to suffer from social anxiety and I wanted to highlight this about her. She is, after all, my favorite Doki.
> 
> Sorry if the "chatfic" bits were cringe-worthy, I thought it would be fun to explore each Doki's personality and way of typing, especially in comparison to Yuri's. 
> 
> Possibly 1 out of 4, let's see how well this goes.


End file.
